LEADING MALAYSIAN NEOCONhttps://scottthong.wordpress.com
Sat, 01 Aug 2015 17:44:03 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngLEADING MALAYSIAN NEOCONhttps://scottthong.wordpress.com
Why Stimulus Fails to Achieve What Its Proponents Promise, As Explained by Two Nobel Prize Winners’ Economic Theorieshttps://scottthong.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/why-stimulus-fails-to-achieve-what-its-proponents-promise-as-explained-by-two-nobel-prize-winners-economic-theories/
https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/why-stimulus-fails-to-achieve-what-its-proponents-promise-as-explained-by-two-nobel-prize-winners-economic-theories/#commentsThu, 14 May 2015 05:53:00 +0000http://scottthong.wordpress.com/?p=17757]]>Firstly, because not all people are stupid, short-sighted suckers.

Milton Friedman, winner of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, proposed the Permanent Income Hypothesis that basically says: People won’t spend more just because they get a one-off, one-time boost (e.g. Stimulus), but only if they foresee a long-term increment (e.g. permanent tax cuts).

Secondly, because not all people are stupid, short-sighted suckers (wow, is that a trend or something?).

Thomas Sargent, one of the two winners of the 2011 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, proposed the Rational Expectations Theory that basically says: Don’t expect people to react to your attempted (economic) manipulation like robots with no free will or personalities.

Hence, when politicians and their pet economists (or is it the other way around?) assume they can just open the fiscal spigot and the teeming masses will fall in line with perfect obedience to their hubristic theories, it doesn’t turn out the way they expected. Stimulus does not automatically equate to an improved economy.

]]>https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/why-stimulus-fails-to-achieve-what-its-proponents-promise-as-explained-by-two-nobel-prize-winners-economic-theories/feed/0ScottChristians Should Be Libertarians – Supporting Passages & Argumentshttps://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/christians-should-be-libertarians-supporting-passages-arguments/
https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/christians-should-be-libertarians-supporting-passages-arguments/#commentsFri, 21 Nov 2014 05:50:25 +0000http://scottthong.wordpress.com/?p=17715]]>A flip side argument from my long ago post A Short Pondering: Should a Christian Leader Impose Laws Based on Christian Standards?, as I’ve become more Libertarian in outlook.

Yes, Christians have a duty to warn those headed towards eternal doom off their wrong path (and in fact, it is a responsibility to do so, whereby a Christian’s neglect is a punishable offence in God’s eyes).

But should Christians in politics or power enact laws to enforce ‘moral’ behaviour? Apart from the fact that forcing behaviour on people automatically excludes moral actions out of their own free will, I feel that Christians should support a minimum of individual, group and government interference into the lives of people (that do not negatively affect other people).

Here’s a few reasons why:

MATTHEW 16:26

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? – Matthew 16:26

Quick question: Would any of us condone coercing or tricking unbelievers into converting to Christianity? You know, like what the Islamic State thugs are doing in the Levant – ‘convert to Islam or die’?

Of course not, as apart from the fact that we believe only true repentance and conversion of one’s own free will count before God’s eyes, we simply don’t do that sort of thing (anymore, a polemic would be quick to add).

So if we won’t force the unsaved to believe in Jesus in order to save their very souls, then why force them to save their health or wealth or anything else on this mortal plane? After all, as Jesus says in the passage above, what is more valuable and precious than one’s soul? It is eternal and immutable, whereas earthly possessions will be left on earth, and the body will fade away into dust.

If we consider it immoral to coerce people into ‘saving’ their own eternal souls by law or threat, then what justification do we have for coercing them to avoid sweet or fatty food for the sake of their brief-by-comparison health? (If you answered ‘So they don’t burden the national healthcare system with their eventual health problems’ then that’s just another good argument against socialized healthcare.)

(Some caveats apply of course, e.g. preventing people from carrying out decisions made under non-neutral circumstances like suicide when in depression, driving when drunk, signing binding agreements without full information & understanding, etc.)

1st CORINTHIANS 6:12

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. – 1st Corinthian 6:12

This passage basically summarizes the Christian approach to ‘religious law’. Namely, we do not have long lists of detailed and binding legal minutiae accompanied by specific punishments like some other religions. (Caveat again, there are a few instances in the New Testament of proscribed behaviour and recommendations for action.)

Rather than specific letters of the law, we are given general guidelines in the spirit of the law – love God, love thy neighbor, seek righteousness on a personal and public basis. Non-adherence to these precepts brings about divine retribution rather than human punishment. (Caveat yet again – this is of course not including earthly punishments as prescribed by the laws set by human governments.)

What each of us does therefore should be with an eye on whether or not doing it is of benefit and in accordance with the precepts given by God.

]]>https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/christians-should-be-libertarians-supporting-passages-arguments/feed/4ScottTHAT’S RACIST! Book on Indiegogohttps://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/thats-racist-book-on-indiegogo/
https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/thats-racist-book-on-indiegogo/#commentsFri, 24 Oct 2014 01:44:48 +0000http://scottthong.wordpress.com/?p=17705]]>If anyone still visits my blog, I’d just like to promote my currently ongoing book project on Indiegogo!

]]>https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/thats-racist-book-on-indiegogo/feed/0ScottDyana Sofya Mohd Daud Bikini Photo – More BN Alinskyite Tacticshttps://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/dyana-sofya-mohd-daud-bikini-photo-more-bn-alinskyite-tactics/
https://scottthong.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/dyana-sofya-mohd-daud-bikini-photo-more-bn-alinskyite-tactics/#commentsWed, 21 May 2014 10:37:24 +0000http://scottthong.wordpress.com/?p=17534]]>What was I saying several times about stooping to preposterous sex accusations as part of their tried and true Alinkyite tactics which they learned by copying US Liberals???

Even before she is officially confirmed as the DAP candidate in the May 31 Teluk Intan by-election, Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud is already the victim of a smear campaign that includes pictures of her in a skimpy swimwear.

The 27-year-old political secretary to DAP leader Lim Kit Siang has been attacked on the basis of her ethnicity and religious beliefs – for being a Malay Muslim running for a seat touted to be predominantly Chinese.

Several blogs also recently published photos of a woman clad in a pink bikini, saying it was Dyana and questioned her character as a Muslim.

After the pictures went viral, some social media users said they were not of Dyana, but that of Filipina actress Pauleen Luna.

Responding to the incident, Dyana said she was surprised by the wave of attacks that ensued, following rumours of her candidacy for the by-election.

“My personal details were misused… And now, to tarnish my image further, there appears to be a photo of me allegedly wearing a bikini.

…

“It is too coincidental, given that rumours of her being a potential candidate surfaced recently. Her rivals were certainly trying to portray her as not a good or real Malay, who in their minds should be conservatively dressed,” said the analyst from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

…

“Of course, joining DAP came with a price. I was immediately scrutinised and lambasted. False stories were created. My words were twisted. I was labelled a ‘pengkhianat’ (traitor). I was also called many other names.”

But she said all these had solidified her belief that she was “on the right side of history.”

“My mother and my mentors have taught me well. They had warned me that there would be days like these.

The mother of Teluk Intan DAP candidate Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud today responded to former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who had suggested that she had not done enough to impress on her daughter of Umno’s struggle for the country and the Malay race.

Umno member Yammy Samad said she had tried to raise Dyana like Dr Mahathir’s son, Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahatir but she ended up like the former prime minister’s strong-willed daughter, Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir.

“I tried to raise her like Mukhriz, but she ended up like Marina. I give all my children the freedom to chose what is right and wrong. Dyana is old enough to think about this,” she told The Malaysian Insider today.

The relevant portion of his article, bolded portions for emphasis done by me:

Take the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from Genesis as one example. Malays know what the Qur’an has to say about this episode. But do they know what the Bible says? Not many do.

Genesis tells us that God wanted to test the people of Lot’s community so He sent two angels disguised as very ‘jambu’ men to that community (if you do not know what jambu means then go ask your Malay friends). And Lot took these two jambu as his guests for the night.

The men in Lot’s community then went berserk. They wanted Lot to surrender these two jambu to the wild crowd so that they can gang rape them. Lot refused and instead offered his two virgin daughters as replacements. They can gang rape his two virgin daughters if they leave the two angels disguised as jambu alone. But the crowd refused Lot’s two virgin daughters. They still wanted the two sexy men.

So God told Lot to take his family and leave that community because He was going to destroy the entire community. Lot and his family were told to leave and not look back. Unfortunately, Lot’s wife did not follow God’s wishes and looked back so she was turned into a pillar of salt.

Lot and his family were spared because they were all righteous people even though Lot had offered his two virgin daughters to be gang raped by the horde of sex-crazed people. Offering your two virgin daughters to be gang raped does not make you unrighteous.

After they had escaped, Lot’s two virgin daughters got him drunk and then had sex with him. Then they became pregnant. But God did not destroy them because they were righteous although they had sex with their own father and got pregnant. Only if you have gay sex will God destroy you.

That is what Christianity teaches us. So what the government did to Anwar is not as bad as what God did to the people of Lot’s community. So why are we complaining about what the government did to Anwar when God did worse? God did not punish Lot for offering his two virgin daughters to be gang raped. In fact, God said Lot was righteous. God did not punish Lot’s daughters for having sex with their own father. In fact, God said they were righteous. God only punished those who have gay sex.

Although RPK goes on quite a bit in his article about reading the Bible, taking comparative religions and understanding religions other than one’s down, here his understanding is lacking and/or coloured by his Islamic background. I don’t blame him really, as many self-proclaimed Christians similarly would not know the following:

Righteousness as defined by Christianity has nothing to do with your deeds, save one: Faith in Jesus (and by extension, God).

There relevant passage:

What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. – Romans 4:3-5

All the ‘Heroes of Faith’ in Hebrews 11 are commended for believing in something they had no assurance of other than God’s word of honour. God promised it, and they lived like they believed it.

Hence when Lot is considered ‘righteous’ in 2 Peter 7-8, it is because he heard God’s message through the angels (leave town!) and believed (he left town).

And on a related point, it is not correct either to assume that the daughters’ de facto rape of their unale-to-give-legal-consent father did not result in any punishment or ill effects. An observant reader will realize just how serious the result of Lot’s family’s sin was – the children born of the incestuous, extra-marital act were named Moab and Bene-Ammon (Genesis 19:36-38). Generations later, the Moabites and the Ammonites were some of the most vicious enemies of their cousins Israel (i.e. the daughters’ father Lot’s uncle Abraham’s son Isaac’s son Jacob aka Israel).

So while faith leads to eternal salvation, earthly actions do have (often serious) consequences.

PPS. Come to think of it, RPK keeps focusing on the ‘Sodom condemned for its homosexuality’ angle… But seems to ignore that Sodom involved attempted forcible gang rape too! Or is he saying that sort of thing should be ok?

United States Secretary of State John Kerry was in Indonesia where he issued a renewed call to arms to combat climate change, calling it a “weapon of mass destruction”.

We’ve been seeing a lot of unexpectedly cool weather across the world. While this may be explained by local phenomenon such as the Northeast Monsoon in Malaysia and the Polar Vortex in the USA, a longer term trend of worldwide cooling is headed our way.

I say this because the sun – the main source of light and heat for our planet – is approaching a combined low point in output. Solar activity rises and falls in different overlapping cycles, and the low points of several cycles will coincide in the near future:

A) 11-year Schwabe Cycle which had a minimum in 2008 and is due for the next minimum in 2019, then 2030. Even at its recent peak (2013) the sun had its lowest recorded activity in 200 years.

B) 87-year Gleissberg cycle which has a currently ongoing minimum period from 1997 – 2032, corresponding to the observed ‘lack of global warming’ (more on that later).

C) 210-year Suess cycle which has its next minimum predicted to be around 2040.

Hence, solar output will very likely drop to a substantial low around 2030 – 2040. This may sound pleasant for Malaysians used to sweltering heat, but it is really not a matter to be taken lightly. Previous lows such as the Year Without A Summer (1816) and the Little Ice Age (16th to 19th century) led to many deaths worldwide from crop failures, flooding, superstorms and freezing winters.

But what about the much-ballyhooed global warming, allegedly caused by increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere? Won’t that more than offset the coming cooling, still dooming us all to a feverish Earth?

Regarding this matter, it is now a plainly accepted fact that there has been no global temperature rise in the past 25 years. This lack of warming is openly admitted by: NASA; The UK Met Office; the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, as well as its former head Dr. Phil Jones (he of the Climategate data manipulation controversy); Hans von Storch (Lead Author for Working Group I of the IPCC); James Lovelock (inventor of the Gaia Theory); and media entities the BBC, Forbes, Reuters, The Australian, The Economist, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

And this is despite CO2 levels having risen more than 13%, from 349 ppm in 1987 to 396ppm today. The central thesis of global warming theory – that rising CO2 levels will inexorably lead to rising global temperatures, followed by environmental catastrophe and massive loss of human life – is proven false.

This is probably why anti-CO2 advocates now warn of ‘climate change’ instead. But pray tell, exactly what mechanism is there for CO2 to cause climate change if not by warming? The greenhouse effect has CO2 trapping solar heat and thus raising temperatures – as we have been warned ad nauseum by climate alarmists – so how does CO2 cause climate change when there is no warming?

Solar activity is a far larger driver of global temperature than CO2 levels, because after all, without the sun there would be no heat for greenhouse gases to trap in the first place. (Remember what I said about the Gleissberg cycle above?)

And why is any of this important to you and I? It matters because countless resources are being spent to meet the wrong challenges. Just think of all the time, energy, public attention and hard cash that have already been squandered on biofuel mandates, subsidies for solar panels and wind turbines, carbon caps and credits, bloated salaries of dignitaries, annual jet-setting climate conferences in posh five-star hotels… To say nothing of the lost opportunities and jobs (two jobs lost for every one ‘green’ job created in Spain, which now has 26% unemployment!). And most of the time it is the common working man, the taxpayer, you and I who foot the bill.

What if all this immense effort and expenditure had been put towards securing food and clean water for the impoverished (combined 11 million deaths/year)? Or fighting dengue and malaria (combined 1.222 million deaths/year)? Or preserving rivers, mangroves, rainforests and endangered species? Or preparing power grids for the increased demand that more severe winters will necessitate – the same power grids now crippled by shutting down reliable coal plants in favour of highly intermittent wind turbines?

In the face of such dire needs that can be met immediately and effectively, continuing to throw away precious money to ‘possibly, perhaps, maybe one day’ solve the non-problem of CO2 emissions is foolish, arrogant and arguably malevolent. To wit, the UN World Food Programme just announced that they are forced to scale back aid to some of the 870 million malnourished worldwide due to a $1 billion funding shortfall and the challenges of the ongoing Syrian crisis. To put this is context, a billion is a mere pittance next to the tens of billions already flushed away by attempted adherence to the Kyoto Protocol (€6.2 billion for just Germany in just 2005 alone!).

During the high times for global warmist doomsaying, sceptics and realists who questioned the unproven theories were baselessly slandered as ‘anti-science’, ‘deniers’, ‘schills for big oil’… Or even ‘war criminals’ deserving Nuremberg-style trials for their ‘crimes against humanity’!

Even now in the midst of a quarter-century of no temperature change, John Kerry derided sceptics as ‘shoddy scientists’ and ‘extreme ideologues’ who are ‘burying their head in the sand’. Ironic then that nature herself seems to be acting the ‘extreme ideologue’ by refusing to cooperate with the fantasies of climate panickers!

Now that the tables are turned, just let it be known that it was not the sceptics who flushed massive amounts of global resources down the drain – while genuine human and environmental issues languished and withered in the empty shadow of global warming hysteria. Crimes against humanity, indeed.

———————————–

All that said, I totally do not expect any apologies to be forthcoming from Datuk Renji Sathiah.

In effect, the adjustments to the “raw” thermometer measurements made by the climate scientists “turns a 90 year cooling trend into a warming trend,” says the astonished Goddard.

Goddard’s plain-as-day evidence not only proves the officially-claimed one-degree increase in temperatures is entirely fictitious, it also discredits the reliability of any assertion by such agencies to possess a reliable and robust temperature record.

Goddard continues: “I discovered a huge error in their adjustments between V1 and V2. This is their current US graph. Note that there is a discontinuity at 1998, which doesn’t look right. Globally, temperatures plummeted in 1999, but they didn’t in the US graph.”

It doesn’t look right, because they made a gigantic error (possibly intentional) going from USHCN V1 to V2. In V1 they adjusted recent temperatures upwards (thin line below) and made no adjustment to older temperatures.

…

“But when they switched to V2, they started adjusting older temperatures downwards, and left post-2000 temperatures more or less intact, ” says Goddard. This created a huge jump (greater than one degree) downwards for all years prior to 2000. You can see what they did in the animation below.

Blue line is thermometer data. Thin red line is V1 adjusted. Thick red line is V2 adjusted. They created more than 1 degree warming by reversing polarity of the adjustment in the pre-2000 years. This created a double downwards adjustment for the pre-1998 years, relative to the post 1998 years.